Workdays for STs under MNREGA proposed to be raised to 150

In a major initiative for tribals, the government is proposing to raise the workdays under its ambitious rural employment guarantee programme MNREGA by 50 per cent to 150 days a year for them in forest areas.
A proposal of the Rural Development Ministry in this regard will be considered by the Union Cabinet on Friday, sources said here today.
Those tribals who have received land rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 will be eligible for additional 50 days of wage employment under the rural job scheme.
The beneficiaries would be those who have no private land and have completed 100 workdays in that particular financial year.

The intent is to stop migration of tribals, the sources said.
They will be given a job card of a different colour to distinguish from the regular MNREGA workers.

Around 14 lakh individual and community titles have been distributed under FRA 2006. Of these around 8 lakh individual titles have been given in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa.
The government believes it as an important initiative since a lot of land levelling, plantation and other activities are required to be undertaken on these lands to make them more productive.
The additional persondays through MNREGA will allow the households to undertake additional work on their own land.

This is one among the several initiatives taken by the Rural Development Ministry for the uplift of the tribals.
The Ministry has already made FRA beneficiaries automatically included for assistance under its housing scheme -- Indira Awaas Yojana.
So far 5.76 lakh households in the states of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh have been sanctioned such assistance.